Sophianotloren

And sometimes, as a direct result of lack of coverage, they die.

Charlene Dill, a 32-year-old mother of three, collapsed and died on a stranger’s floor at the end of March. She was at an appointment to try to sell a vacuum cleaner, one of the three part-time jobs that she worked to try to make ends meet for her family. Her death was a result of a documented heart condition — and it could have been prevented.

Dill was uninsured, and she went years without the care she needed to address her chronic conditions because she couldn’t afford it.
Under the health reform law, which seeks to expand coverage to millions of low-income Americans, Dill wasn’t supposed to lack insurance. She was supposed to have access to a public health plan through the law’s expansion of the Medicaid program. But Dill, a Florida resident, is one of the millions of Americans living in a state that has refused to accept Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion after the Supreme Court ruled this provision to be optional. Those low-income people have been left in a coverage gap, making too much income to qualify for a public Medicaid plan but too little income to qualify for the federal subsidies to buy a plan on Obamacare’s private exchanges.

Florida has one of the highest uninsurance rates in the nation, and is home to a disproportionately large number of residents who struggle to afford health services. Nonetheless, lawmakers have continued to resist accepting generous federal funds to expand Medicaid to an estimated 750,000 low-income Floridians like Dill.

So she could have gotten help.  She babysat, she sold vacuum cleaners, she cleaned houses to try to earn enough for her and her three kids.  Friends tried to raise money for her heart meds, now instead they are raising money for her funeral.  Now those three kids don't have a mother because Republicans in Florida hate Obama.

Think about that for a while.

"So no liberal is going to win a debate that big government freed the slaves." 

-- Jim DeMint, former Republican Senator, current head of the odious Heritage Foundation, and committed lifetime hateful deranged bastard.

haergow:

I can’t stop laughing at this panel what’s wrong with me

Now somebody needs to write the comic where the authorities finally get him, and it’s for tax evasion.  Like Al Capone.

The New America foundation has released a study of graduate and professional school debt, which features a bunch of interesting information. Unlike most reports regarding such debt, New America’s survey includes survey estimates of actual educational debt totals, not merely how much graduate and professional school students have borrowed while in post-undergrad programs (the latter figure excludes undergraduate debt and interest accrued on educational debt). It’s a longitudinal study, with numbers for 2004, 2008, and 2012 (all figures are reported in 2012 dollars).

Here are a few figures for the 50th and 75th percentiles of total educational debt in 2012 for students with debt (approximately 87% of all students):

MBA 50th: $42,000 75th: $69,906

Master of Arts: 50th: $58,539 75th: $90,892

Master of Science: 50th: $50,400 75th: $84,808

JD: 50th: $140,616 75th: $193,823

The comparatively modest MBA figures no doubt reflect that employers often pay for part or even all of the tuition costs incurred by MBA students. I don’t know what to make of the MA and MS figures (How marketable are masters degrees? Note that these figures don’t include education masters, which are often obtained by teachers who are increasing their salaries via further credentialing, and which are listed separately).

The law school figures are both shocking and unsurprising. When I attempted to calculate average total educational debt for law graduates in an academic article in 2012, I used what I took to be a conservative estimate of $10,000 of undergraduate debt among the 87% or so of law graduates with debt. New America calculates the true figure as being $16,660 at the 50th percentile, and more than $35,000 at the 75th.

It’s still common to read statements from (usually older) legal academics, lamenting that some graduates now incur “as much as” $150,000 in debt, when in fact this will probably be the average figure for next month’s graduating class.

What has produced such numbers, which require 25 years of four figure per month debt payments — essentially the equivalent of a mortgage? Obviously skyrocketing tuition has played the most crucial role, but here I want to note another factor, which has more to do with the structure of the American economy as a whole than with the specific behavior of law schools.

These graduate debt figures help highlight how expensive it is to get an advanced degree even without regard to the tuition costs incurred by students. And that non-tuition expense is, in many instances, a direct product of America’s increasing economic stratification.

Consider what it now costs to attend law school in New York, or Washington, or Boston, or San Francisco, or Los Angeles, or Chicago. Over the past generation, each of these cities has to a greater or lesser extent been transformed into a playpen for the one percenters. The result is that UC-Hastings (located in the scenic Tenderloin district of San Francisco) estimates that a reasonably frugal law student will incur $23,616 in living expenses over the nine-month academic year, while Brooklyn Law School (Brooklyn Heights) estimates that student will spend $28,225, and Whittier (Costa Mesa CA) calculates its nine month cost of attendance as $27,796.

Since full-time law students must normally take 36 months to cover the distance from the first day of classes until the bar exam two months after graduation, all these figures need to be multiplied by four to estimate student living expenses. In other words, students are incurring $100,000 or more in attendance costs without regard to tuition (sticker tuition price at these schools is over $50,000 per year at Brooklyn and Hastings, and a mere $41,460 at Whittier, where a total of 56 of 210 2013 graduates had full-time non-temp jobs requiring law degrees in February of this year, while more than 40% of the graduating class was completely unemployed nine months after graduation.)

Of course no-doc federal loans allow anybody these schools to enroll to borrow the full cost of attendance, most especially including the cost of living in places where people with household incomes of $400,000 per year consider themselves part of the struggling “upper middle class.”

The fact that the government will lend you the money to live in or perilously near an enclave of the hyper-wealthy for three years during which time you have taken yourself out of the paid labor force (law students at non-elite schools are expected to “intern,” aka, work for free, in order to get their feet inside rapidly slamming doors) doesn’t make it a good idea to borrow that money. In other words, a lot of law schools located in such places are no longer worth attending even for “free.”

Yesterday, Major Kong left this comment at the mothership:


BBBB – I’ll be in your neck of the woods Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week.


For those of you who don't know the good Major, he is a pilot who, after an extensive and fascinating military career, now flies for a major freight carrier. Basically, he's a cross between Race Bannon and Santa Claus. Since he is a commercial pilot, when he says "I’ll be in your neck of the woods Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week" he doesn't mean he'll be in your neck of the woods from Tuesday until Thursday- he means he'll be in your neck of the woods on Tuesday, then he'll be back on Wednesday, and he will return on Thursday. Yeah, even more than myself, he's the sleep-deprivation poster boy.

At any rate, we made plans to meet up today- he flew into the region around six-thirty in the morning and sent me an e-mail telling me that he'd arrived and would probably sleep until about noon. Around eleven o'clock, I started driving upstate, to the greater Fishkill metropolitan area, then I pulled over at the three-quarter way point to check my e-mail for the message that the major was ready to road-trip. Shortly before one o'clock, we rendezvoused at his hotel and drove south to my workplace. I had called the site manager earlier in the day to tell him that I would be bringing a friend to the site, and got the all-clear.

When we arrived, there were quite a few co-workers on site, preparing for a spring fundraiser that is taking place this weekend. I introduced the major to the I.T. guys and a few other members of the day shift. While I was making introductions, I noticed that a pleasant-looking young woman had entered the building. I informed her that the site was closed, but I would point out some of the site's salient features. Next thing you know, her parents arrived, and I learned that the three were Westmeath residents on vacation to New York for a week. Since I immediately took a liking to them, I took them along with the major on a tour of our site. My co-worker **REDACTED**, who had just finished giving a tour to a school group, decided to give us an impromptu tour of the site, including a wonderful demonstration of the onsite **REDACTED**, a piece of machinery which I always watch operating with the raucous glee of an eight-year old.

In the course of our tour, I introduced the Major, who is a cat person, and our new friends from Ireland to Fred and Ginger. Atypically, Fred was not shy around strangers and Ginger did not try to climb up the Major's shirt. We bid a grateful farewell to my co-workers, both two- and four-legged and went together to another nearby tourist destination.

While there, I showed friends old and new the **REDACTED** of **REDACTED**, upon whom the character **REDACTED** of **REDACTED** was modeled. We then took a stroll to the **REDACTED** of **REDACTED**, who starting the whole thing off back in the day. The Major and I then took leave of our friends from overseas, it being time we headed north, the major having to report back to work by 7PM.

We took the scenic route north to Fishkill, including a ride on the "goat path" atop the cliffs on the east bank of the Hudson. I hadn't been that way in a long time so I was glad to play the "at home he's a tourist" game. The scenery along this particular stretch of road is nothing short of breathtaking.

When we finally got back to the greater Fishkill metropolitan area, we had an early dinner at a very pleasant local diner and I dropped the Major off at his hotel with plenty of time to spare.

It was a good afternoon- time spent well with friends old and new, and an opportunity to rekindle my love of the place I spend my workdays. Special thanks go to my co-worker **REDACTED**, who went out of his way to provide us with a fantastic experience.

Today, I worked all day on the kitchen job.  Sure, we have hired a man to do the fancy carpentry stuff and so forth, but we are doing some bits to help move it along.  Today, I painted the inside of the new cupboards and the big drawers with something called “teak oil” — a very thin easy to apply oil finish.    I also took fine sandpaper and steel wool to the antique hutch top that has been with us since 1983; it was looking a bit battered and grubby on the kitchen wall.  We did not want to remove it, so I balanced precariously on a kitchen stool.  Then I took the beeswax/mineral oil cream I am using on the new butcher block countertops to the clean wood.  It glows and feels like silk!

Fearing we might run out of wood used in cupboard fronts and backwash — and facing building a box around the new stove exhaust fan and a tall thin cabinet to hold baking sheets, griddles and other tall narrow things — I went scouting around the outbuildings.  I found three oak shelves — they were the first wood bought in our marriage for a house project.  They were shelves in our first military quarters!  I sanded off the deep dark stain and the many nicks, scraps, and failed to remove spot that proved too deep — burnt there when my daughter, at about age ten, put a lit candle on the second of three shelves instead of the top.  I re-stained them in colors that will match the new kitchen color scheme.  I rather like incorporating bits and pieces of our lives and memories into my kitchen.

Our kitchen has a lot of recycling — the backwash and door fronts are made of recycled flooring — heavy stuff about 80 years old, tongue and groove joined and very beautifully durable.   Much remains to do, and yet we so hope to be done by the weekend!

Filed under: Life Tagged: householding, marriage

President Obama on Tuesday signed two executive measures intended to help close longstanding pay disparities between men and women as Democrats seek to capitalize on their gender-gap advantage at the ballot box in a midterm election year.

Mr. Obama, standing in front of a platform of women in a picture-ready ceremony in the East Room of the White House, said his actions would make it easier for women to learn whether they had been cheated by employers. He called on Congress to pass legislation that would take more significant steps.

Remember, President Obama's first legislative priority when he took office was the Lily Ledbetter Paycheck Fairness Act, which was blocked by Senate Republicans in 2010 and then again in 2012.  Another vote on the act will come tomorrow, where it is expected to be blocked a third time.  Real change will take Congress, but the President can do some things, and he chose to do them today.

Neither of the actions Mr. Obama took on Tuesday would affect the broad American work force. The executive order he signed bars federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their salaries and an executive memorandum he issued instructs the Labor Department to collect statistics on pay for men and women from such contractors.

But the White House staged a ceremony with the sort of profile usually reserved for a major bill signing. Aides arranged for Mr. Obama to be introduced by Lilly M. Ledbetter, who has become a symbol of the pay gap issue since the Supreme Court ruled that her discrimination case had been filed after the expiration of a statute of limitations. Congress passed a measure named for her changing the deadlines for filing such suits and Mr. Obama made it the first bill he signed after taking office.

Ms. Ledbetter said the executive order signed by Mr. Obama would have made a difference in her case. “I didn’t know I was being paid unfairly and I had no way to find out. I was told in no uncertain terms that Goodyear, then and still a government contractor, fired employees who shared their salary information. It was against company policy.”

Meanwhile, Republicans will all vote against this tomorrow and then tell women that they are stupid and being fooled by evil Democrats.

A very good discussion between Harold Pollock and Jonathan Gruber on the Supreme Court decision that will kill some of society’s most vulnerable citizens:

Jon: I think, Harold, the single thing we probably need to keep the most focus on is the tragedy of the lack of Medicaid expansions. I know you’ve written about this. You know about this, but I think we cannot talk enough about the absolute tragedy that’s taken place. Really, a life-costing tragedy has taken place in America as a result of that Supreme Court decision. You know, half the states in America are denying their poorest citizens health insurance paid for by the federal government.

So to my mind, I’m offended on two levels here. I’m offended because I believe we can help poor people get health insurance, but I’m almost more offended there’s a principle of political economy that basically, if you’d told me, when the Supreme Court decision came down, I said, “It’s not a big deal. What state would turn down free money from the federal government to cover their poorest citizens?” The fact that half the states are is such a massive rejection of any sensible model of political economy, it’s sort of offensive to me as an academic. And I think it’s nothing short of political malpractice that we are seeing in these states and we’ve got to emphasize that.

Harold: One of the things that’s really striking to me is there’s a politics of impunity towards poor people, particularly non-white poor people that is almost a feature rather than a bug in the internal politics in some of these states, not to cover people under Medicaid, even if it’s financially very advantageous to do so. I think there’s a really important principle to defeat this politically, not just because Medicaid is important for people, but because it’s such a toxic political perspective that has to be … It has to be shown that that approach to politics doesn’t work because otherwise, we will really be stuck with some very unjust policies that will be pursued with complete impunity in some of these places.

Jon: That’s a great way to put it. There’s larger principles at stake here. When these states are turning – not just turning down covering the poor people – but turning down the federal stimulus that would come with that.

Harold: Yeah.

Jon: So the price they are willing … They are not just not interested in covering poor people, they are willing to sacrifice billions of dollars of injections into their economy in order to punish poor people. It really is just almost awesome in its evilness.

Again, it would be unfair to blame the Supreme Court for this if there was a clear constitutional command that the ACA’s funding mechanism plausibly violated, but there isn’t. The relevant precedent overwhelmingly suggested that the mechanism was constitutional, and applying the logic of the decision leads to transparently absurd results. But while the Supreme Court handed them the tools, it’s the Republican statehouses that are standing between medical facilities and the working poor, declaring “unnecessary suffering and death now, unnecessary suffering and death tomorrow, unecessary suffering and death forever!”

…Lithwick on the evil in Virginia.

thesylverlining:

babebraham:

today at the bookstore i asked the lady working if she had any lgbtq books that i could check out and her eyes magnified in what i mistook as horror and i thought i had offended her and then she said “i have a bag of lesbian fiction in the basement i’ve been waiting for someone to finally ask” and she all but burst down the stairs to get them for me

bless

"I have a bag of lesbian fiction in the basement" is my new go-to pickup line

So saying you have a bag of lesbian fiction in the basement while wearing a bow at the back of your head would be the ultimate tumblr lesbian come on signal. o:

I’ve just come home from an intense 6 day trip in Toronto, home of the Feminist Porn Awards and the Feminist Porn Conference. 6 days among other women, other queers, other porn performers, other feminists. In that time I have witnessed moments that made my heart soar, my eyes tear up with love and the fiercest of joys, pride in the people I hold close to me. I have experienced moments that hurt my heart, that disappointed me, moments that underlined how privilege can alienate and divide us. I spoke to academics, I spoke to sex workers, I spoke to sex workers who were academics. It was a weekend of realizations, inspiration, determination… and I came away from it all feeling exhilarated and ready to change the world.

Even though I’ve been performing in arguably feminist porn for several years and have been a feminist sex worker my whole adult life, this was a new experience for me. I’ve never been able to make it to the FPAs (being a queer porn performer is more personally fulfilling than financially sustainable) but thanks to a dear friend I was gifted the funds to go this time. As I work with TROUBLEfilms my hope was to be present to support “Girl Pile“, “Trans Grrrls“, “Hard Femme” and “Femme Facial“, as well as our site Indie Porn Revolution. I also looked forward to hanging out with porn performers I knew well, and meeting new ones I had admired online.

Feminist porn has become pretty popular even within the mainstream over the last year. AVN held a panel called “The Feminist Porn Mystique”. XBiz gave out an award for Best Feminist Porn Release. Ellen Page praised feminist porn. Even though it’s been around in some form since at least the 80s, and the Feminist Porn Awards have been around since 2006, 2013-2014 seems to be the dawning of an era of porn and feminism being linked, not just for political reasons but for marketing ones. There are, of course, questions and debate about what constitutes feminist porn, and discussions of how porn can be both empowering and disempowering under our current systems of oppression. But less and less do the words “feminist porn” seem like an oxymoron.

I stayed with my girlfriend who lives in Canada for the FPAs/FPCon, which was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because I wasn’t terribly far but was far enough to have my space (plus someone to snuggle!), but also a curse because that distance cut into some of the experience of hanging out casually I might have had otherwise. It also meant, though, that I got some much needed off time away from the bustle of the events. I went to the City Council meeting and saw Rob Ford in person, ate some incredible ramen I’ll dream about for years, and had poutine with bacon and maple syrup.

On Thursday I dressed up and went to the VIP party to have a couple glasses of wine before heading to the theater. They were screening 10 hot porn shorts up for awards the next day, and I wasn’t familiar with all of them. What was particularly interesting to me was seeing the very different styles of shooting, along with the music each one choose to accompany their piece. I was grateful not to see anything screened that triggered me (something I was concerned about due to a particular person being in attendance) and was thrilled to see many things that excited and interested me. Australian porn performer and Penthouse Pet Zahra Stardust, in particular, made work that entwined the political with the pornographic in ways I found satisfying, and I definitely ended up wanting to see French producer Ovidie‘s full piece (I think on privacy and nonmonogamy, and filmed like a documentary). “Bed Party“‘s exploration of straight queers struck close to home as a queer in a relationship with a cis man. But the piece that stuck with me was “Best Slumber Party Ever” directed by Samuel Shanaboy. You have to see it to understand, but suffice to say it was a crowd favourite. There’s a sequel coming, by the way.

Friday I started with a press conference in which I ended up being pretty shy (it totally happens)  and then hung out getting ready for the award show. I managed to tease my hair into a beehive which surprised me and wowed everyone else, which made me reasonably proud. I got ready with Courtney Trouble and it was really nice to have femme one on one time! Then it was off to the Awards, where the entertainment sizzled, the people were hotties all around, and the emotions were high. April Flores’s husband, the late Carlos Batts, received an Indie Icon Award and her speech made me tear up. TROUBLEfilms won awards for Hard Femme and Trans Grrrls, which was delightful and exciting. I was grateful to be on stage to accept an award for a scene I felt really, really proud of, with fierce fat femmes who were/are my icons. You can find the winners at the bottom of this post!

After that I got to sit in and help out with a hot threesome shoot between two long held porn crushes, Wolf Hudson and James Darling, and a brand new one in Zahra Stardust (who was fresh from winning heartthrob of the year). Also with us was Courtney, doing the main footage, and a lovely journalist whose mind I think was expanded in all the best of ways. It was a really sexy scene, and I can’t wait for you all to see it! For now there’s just one BTS photo I’m willing to leak and it’s right here. I also really recommend you look at everyone’s sites because there’s a lot on there to make your heart flutter- watch Wolf’s dancing, James with unicorns, and Zahra talk politics. Yum yum yum.

Then it was time for the conference. I did better than I normally do at conferences and went to a session in every block except one. The sessions I sat in on were “Feminist Porn: What It Is, What It Isn’t, And Why It Matters”, “Getting In and Getting Out”, and “Evaluating the Outcome” on Saturday, and “Aussie Porn” on Sunday, with the panel I was on “Do Porn Stars Deserve Privacy” the last one before the closing keynote. I appreciated the discussions being had (though I think every session should have its own hashtag for easy catching up) and found myself often wishing I could be in two places at once! Having in depth discussions about various aspects of feminist theory and pornography, as well as assessing what feminist porn is, what ethical porn is, and what we need to do better, is vital for representation and intersectionality. I felt inspired and determined, which is a good way to be after a conference. I was also EXHAUSTED.

I’m glad to be home, but I had an amazing time in Toronto. It’s inspired me to make more porn, better porn,  as well as to buy more porn from indie performers. My brain is still whirling with ideas of what to present on next year, both on screen and in a panel. I learned how far feminist porn has come to differentiate itself from the mainstream, and how it’s influencing the mainstream, but I was also made aware of our failings as a movement and how we can do better. I’m curious how to film for the desires of asexual folks, for example, or how i’d make a porn for my mum. And, well, I love a challenge. Game on!

Feminist Porn Award 2014 Winners:

Best Short
No Artificial Sweeteners
Sonya JF Barnett (The Madame)

Sexiest Short
Trains | Paul Deeb (Pillow Book Productions)

Steamiest Straight Movie
The Temptation of Eve | Jacky St. James (New Sensations)

Golden Beaver of Canadian Content
Power at Play | Carey Gray (House of Switch)

Best Direction
Sexual Freedom (Sex Stories 3) | Ovidie (Frenchlover TV)

Feminist Porn Awards Smutty School Teacher Award for Sex Education
Tristan Taormino’s Guide to Bondage for Couples | Tristan Taormino (Adam & Eve)

Hottest Dyke Film
Hard Femme: Lesbian Curves 2 | Courtney Trouble (TROUBLEfilms)

Honorable Mentions
Something Better: Performers Talk About Feminism & Porn | Ms. Naughty (Indigo Lush)

Best Slumber Party Ever | Samuel Shanahoy (tee vee dinner)

Doing It Again Vol 1: Playful Awakening | Tobi Hill-Meyer (Handbasket  Productions)

Honorable Websites
www.juicypinkbox.com
www.naughtynatural.com
www.welovegoodsex.com
www.wendywilliamsxxx.com

Hottest Straight Vignette
Xconfessions | Erika Lust (Lust Productions S. L)

Hottest Lesbian Vignette
Women Reclaiming Sex on Film | Madison Young (Madisonbound Productions)

Hottest Kink Movie
Rubber Bordello | Soma Snakeoil (Snakeoil Media Productions)

Best Boygasm
Bed Party: Eden Alexander & Sebastian Keys | Shine Louise Houston (Pink & White Productions)

Tantalizing Trans Film
Trans Grrrls: Revolution Porn Style Now! | Courtney Trouble (TROUBLEfilms)

Heartthrob of the Year
Zahra Stardust

Movie of the Year
Silver Shoes | Jennifer Lyon Bell (Blue Artichoke Films)

 

A valuable reminder:

It’s proper to revisit that campaign, which established a new standard for odious political advertising. That’s a real achievement, given the deceitful nature of most of the TV campaigns for and against California ballot propositions.

Over at Slate, Mark Joseph Stern has compiled a remembrance, with videos, of the Proposition 8 campaign to which Eich donated $1,000. As Stern observes, the focus of the campaign was on the effect of gay marriage on children. (Recall that Prop 8 overturned a California court ruling legalizing gay marriage and wrote a gay marriage prohibition into the state constitution, so a “yes” vote was anti-gay marriage.)

More contemptably, several of the commercials suggested that legal gay marriage would “confuse” children who would have to be taught about it in school. One depicts a schoolteacher fretting to his principal about the mandate that he’ll have to introduce the concept in the classroom: “Just don’t call it marriage, and confuse a kid with a social dynamic that they can’t possibly understand.”

That ad, by the way, spelled out another theme of the campaign, that the failure of Proposition 8 would introduce a new level of government coercion. The teacher ad came complete with ominous music as the principal explained that “our hands are tied here.”

Another ad featured a little girl interrogating her gay fathers about where babies come from if not from a mommy and a daddy, as they shift uncomfortably in their seats trying to conjure up an answer. A third ad featured Pepperdine University law professor Richard Peterson warning that “second graders” would have to be taught that “boys could marry boys.” (Pepperdine objected to being named in the ad, but the sponsors refused to remove the identification.)

As Stern observes, “The campaign’s strategy was to debase gay families as deviant and unhealthy while insinuating that gay people are engaged in a full-scale campaign to convert children to their cause.” 

It’s nearly impossible to overstate just how odious that campaign was.  No argument that opposing same-sex marriage isn’t bigotry could survive an examination of the rhetoric of Prop 8 supporters.

Sometimes, you CAN get a glimpse at why superstition continues to grip people.  This week, for instance, seems fraught we malice towards me SEEING anything close at hand.  It is Tuesday.  Since last Thursday I’ve “gone through” FOUR PAIR of reading glasses.  On Thursday last week, I broke the arm on my prescription pair.

I resorted to a $25 pair of orange tinted readers designed for use at the computer.  They vanished on Saturday as I changed clothing to go out on errands.  No, they were not on the dresser where I thought I put them to change shirts, nor on the floor or in the laundry hamper.  I searched my entire small 20′ x 24′ dwelling on hands and knees, no joy.

Next, an old pair of too-tight-in-temples $10 grocery store readers that were in a desk drawer.  Those vanished this morning when I came in to get dressed after feeding the dog in the Big House.  Searched both houses again. FUCK!  No damned joy!

I was pretty sure I had no more leftover grocery store cheapies, I did have a prescription pair in sunglass tint, once worn outdoors to read in bright sunlight.  When I opened that case?  Lo!  Another pair of cheapies, and my day moved onwards.  Until twenty minutes ago when I did a crisis-round of weeding in my badly neglected-for-remodel yard.  I ran about digging out blooming dandelions to feed to the geese.  The glasses fell off my collar at my feet, I stuck them firmly into the deep patch pocket of my hip-length jacket.  I finished up, and was going to walk out and see how fan-box construction was going, stuck my hand in pocket to retrieve glasses and found NOTHING.

Searched the yard.  No joy.  Damn it all.  Somebody please pass me a virginal what-the-hell-ever to sacrifice to the Eater of Reading Glasses?!

Tagged: fuckedy-fuck-fuck, superstition

Jonathan Chait’s epic race fail: How a story about racism and Obama goes horribly wrong

New York magazine's cover story suggests liberals are paranoid, MSNBC is like stop-and-frisk -- and other oddities

...

Though Chait acknowledges that appeals to white racism have undergirded the modern Republican Party since the civil rights era, he insists liberals are bullies who refuse to “acknowledge that the ability to label a person racist represents, in 21st-century America, real and frequently terrifying power.” He singles out MSNBC for special scorn (full disclosure: I’m a contributor there), while never once mentioning Fox by name. “MSNBC has spent the entire Obama presidency engaged in a nearly nonstop ideological stop-and-frisk operation,” Chait writes.

See what he did with that “stop-and-frisk” reference? In case you’ve missed it, police departments in some cities have been accused of infringing the civil rights of blacks and Latinos by physically stopping them, and invasively frisking them, with little and sometimes no evidence of wrongdoing. It’s kind of a big deal to civil rights liberals, of every race. So Chait tweaks them by accusing MSNBC of stopping and frisking conservatives “ideologically” – as in metaphorically and without consequence, which technically means not stopping and frisking them at all.

If you liked that comparison, you’re going to love the whole piece.

Well, that’s if you can get past the opening anecdote, which features a clash between Bill Maher and Bill Kristol in which Maher claims the rise of the Tea Party is about having “a black president” and Kristol gets really mad and sad, and the whole mess is supposed to sum up the ugliness of American political debate. Clearly the angels are crying over poor Bill Kristol being hurt by charges of conservative racism made by a liberal comedian on TV. I think Reince Priebus ought to set the whole Kristol-Maher exchange to that Sarah McLachlan music the SPCA uses, and raise money for the RNC.

Here’s what Chait admits Republicans are doing wrong, with regard to race: Enacting restrictive voter laws in states where black turnout has risen. Refusing to expand Medicaid, which disproportionately hurts African-Americans (who vote Democratic). Lying about Obama cutting Medicare, which scares older whites (who vote Republican). Explaining the GOP’s opposition to a Western-style social safety net, he even admits: “The factor that stands above all the rest is slavery.”

And here’s what Chait claims liberals are actually doing wrong with regard to race: mostly telling the truth about all of those things, while occasionally exaggerating it.

...

Clearly, in Connecticut, it is worse to be a prostitute than it is to be a robber and assaulter. Because there really is no other way to explain this story:

A local woman faces prostitution charges after police said she reported being robbed by a man who responded to her ad offering sex for money.

Get that? A woman, who was freely choosing to engage in a contract for sexual services, is such a danger to society that she must be arrested and prosecuted, while the guy who got angry with her and assaulted her and stole his cell phone, well, who cares about that, right?

What’s more offensive is that she wasn’t arrested on the scene. Some officer took the time to go back to his or her desk, write up a warrant, go to a judge, get it signed and then go track her down again and then arrest her.

I’m sure this will fix her. Meanwhile, Mr. John is free to rob and assault as many other ‘prostitutes’ as he likes, because…well, you know the drill.

H/T: Maggie McNeil.

Here is another in the long line of legal fictions: that you get an impartial jury of your peers. Let’s leave aside the peer part for now, because there’s already been much study on the lack of any real peers in juries selected these days and focus on the “impartial” part.

Impartial, in this context, is supposed to mean someone who doesn’t come to the trial with any predispositions. Someone who is able to be fair, listen to the evidence, and conscientiously apply the law to the  facts, regardless of whether one emotionally agrees with the result compelled by those facts.

In reality, we aren’t stone robots. Everyone comes in with preconceived notions. In these days of increasing polarity, we have ever stronger opinions about crime and criminal justice and especially those icky child molesters.

So we come to our legal fiction: rehabilitation. That’s when the judge asks an obviously biased venireperson enough questions that they eventually get the hint, no matter how stupid they are, and end up saying the magic words “I think I can be fair in this case”. Doesn’t really matter what they’ve said prior to that point, once we get to that incantation, the juror is deemed impartial and fit to serve on the jury.

You’d be a fool, however, to think that the juror has actually changed his or her views. Just ask Jose Felipe Velasco:

Jose Felipe Velasco insists Orange County Judge David A. Hoffer cheated him out of a fair trial by placing a juror on the supposedly neutral citizen’s panel after she repeatedly declared the defendant guilty before hearing any evidence.

But you knew that anyway from the title of this post. So how bad could it have really been? Very bad.

After an Orange County prosecutor gave an opening statement, Juror 112 notified Hoffer that based on her own experiences she believes criminals should forgo trials in such sexual assault cases and go straight to prison to spare victims additional turmoil.

This is, unfortunately, a very common reaction. The presumption of guilt is very strong.

The prosecutor then asked the juror: “You haven’t heard any evidence. How would you vote?”  Juror 112 responded, “I would have to vote guilty.”

…

The judge asked if she could return a verdict of not guilty if the government couldn’t prove it’s case beyond a reasonable doubt.

“I don’t think I would be able to,” the juror replied.

The prosecutor tried again: “Let me ask you this flat-out. Let’s say the victim takes the stand [and] you flat-out don’t believe her. In fact, you think she’s lying. You look at her [and conclude] ‘I don’t believe a word coming out of her mouth.’ Are you going to convict this man anyway?”

Juror 112 responded before the first witness in the case had been called, “That depends. I still feel he was at fault.”

Had enough? Well, there’s more:

Hoffer, appointed to the bench in 2003 by Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, and the local government’s lawyer continued to ask questions and finally got her to say she “would try” to be a fair juror.

Over defense objections, the judge put her on the panel.

So, in his bid to get a new trial, Velasco was rebuffed because eventually the juror was berated and brow-beaten into saying “she would try to be fair”.¹

Obviously, Velasco was found guilty and now, apparently, he has no review of his clearly illegal conviction.

They not only took this horse to water, but forced its mouth into the lake and made it swallow the company line. You might rationally argue that a prosecutor with a duty to ensure justice is done should not have pressed for the inclusion of this juror, but we already know that not all prosecutors are concerned with justice.

When you say you’re proud of the American system and that the system “works”, this is how it works.

[Update: Thanks to the comments below, we now have the actual opinion in this case. I have a follow up post on the opinion and the omission of certain "facts" from it and the reality that even judges engage in spin.]

—–

Critics might believe that “like” has infiltrated and degraded American English, but John McWhorter argues just the contrary. McWhorter claims that “like” is not a marker of the downfall of spoken language, but instead, a sign of its “growing sophistication.” He explains that “like” is not necessarily a sign of hesitation and indecision; it can be used to signify consideration.

“Like” often functions to acknowledge objection while underlining one’s own point. To say, “This is, like, the only way to make it work,” is to implicitly recognize that this news may be unwelcome to the hearer, and to soften the blow by offering one’s suggestion discreetly swathed in a garb of hypothetical-ness.

Related Posts:

• This.
• The Language of Desire
• What Writers Love
• Fiction in the Digital Age
• We’d Rather Be Looking at Pictures of Kittens, or How We Learned to Love TL;DR

Nobody was ever meant
To remember or invent
What he did with every cent.  -  Robert Frost

People who have never owned a company often fail to understand that any institution formally organized and registered with the government is a separate entity from its owner, even if there is only one owner.  I am the sole owner and member of Maggie McNeill, LLC, yet I cannot simply take money from that entity as I please; I can pay myself as much salary or bonuses as I like, but it must be recorded that way, and if I spend the company’s money on myself without proper documentation (say, by buying cat treats or going to a movie) it is considered embezzlement.  It can get complicated; when I’m on my book tour this summer, for example, I can buy myself dinner with company funds (as long as I keep the receipts), but I could not do the same tonight because I’m not travelling on company business right now.  And though I could give copies of my book purchased with company funds to reviewers or other business contacts, if I wanted to give them to friends as gifts I’d have to buy them from the company because there is no valid promotional reason to give them to friends.

To those who have never owned a company, this probably seems remarkably silly, and it would be if not for the existence of income taxes.  But because businesses and individuals are taxed differently, using company funds directly for personal use avoids having to disburse those funds on paper, so it then becomes undeclared income.  When the company is small and the amounts meager it’s unlikely the taxman will discover anything amiss, but as the amount of money in question increases the government pays a great deal more attention:  remember, while Al Capone got away with many murders and other violent crimes, it was for tax evasion that he was finally imprisoned.  And when the entity in question is a nonprofit organization, the rules are even more strict; the owner of a nonprofit is still subject to income tax even if the organization isn’t, so spending nonprofit funds on personal use is considered an even more serious offense.

The reason I’m bringing all this up right now is not merely because I got a short lecture on it from my banker last Friday, but also because of certain information a confidential source provided me just the day before that.  Remember Rachel Moran, touted by Irish prohibitionists as a former sex worker despite the fact that she doesn’t know the first thing about the profession and nobody in the area she supposedly worked had ever set eyes on her before?  And then there was her confederate Justine Reilly, who was convicted of “pimping” in 2001 but repeatedly “reframed her experiences” until she was magically transformed into the “victim of pimps” herself.  Well, with the help of Magdalene laundry front Ruhama, the two of them formed an “independent” liar’s club named “SPACE International” and then set about soliciting (ahem) donations (ahem ahem).  Here’s an interesting email exchange with Norma Ramos of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (a major prohibitionist group instrumental in spreading Swedish rot propaganda); I’ve inverted the order from the way it appears on the forwarded email so as to make it easier to read, and I’ve also hidden details like addresses and bank account numbers.

From: Rachel Moran [mailto: rachel.moran8@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 11:05 AM
To: Norma Ramos
Cc: justine reilly
Subject: Bank account details

Dear Norma,

After more nonsense with the bank today where I have been advised that Justine and I will need to set an appointment for next week, we have decided that the commonsense thing to do is have our funding transferred into my account, where it will stay only until we have set up our joint account.

I am going to Norway tomorrow for five nights and myself and Justine are going to the UK the following week, and of course you are leaving CATW within weeks, so we feel this is the best way to deal with things for the time being and are hoping this is okay with you.

Mine is a current account, not a savings account (in case you are asked) and my bank details are below:

AIB (Allied Irish Bank) – ***** Branch
Account name: Rachel Moran
Account Number: 6******7
National Sort Code: 9****1

My home address is, * S_____ Lane, ********, Dublin **, in case you should need that. If there is anything else you need please let me know.

Thank you for this, and for everything, xx

Rachel

From: Norma Ramos <NRamos@catwinternational.org>
Date: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 4:03 PM
To: Rachel Moran < rachel.moran8@gmail.com>
Cc: justine reilly <justinereilly@ymail.com>, Corey Backes <CBackes@catwinternational.org>, Janet Gumbs <jgumbs@catwinternational.org>
Subject: RE: Bank account details

Dear Rachel,

CATW is thrilled to an award a seed grant in the amount of $5000.00 to SPACE to facilitate the development of this NGO dedicated to working against the commercial sexual exploitation of human beings. Thank you for the leadership you and Justine have shown been working to end this human rights violation. Warmest, Norma

Norma Ramos, Esq.
Executive Director
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Phone: (212) 643-9895
www.catwinternational.org

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 9:31 PM, Janet Gumbs <JGumbs@catwinternational.org> wrote:

Dear Rachel,

I am confirming that a wire for the amount of USD 5,000,  Euro 3,656.31 was processed today.  The funds should be in your account within two days.  Please confirm receipt of these funds at such time.

Best,

Janet Gumbs
Director of Finance
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)
t. 212.643.9895
http://www.catwinternational.org/

From: Rachel Moran [mailto: rachel.moran8@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 6:35 AM
To: Janet Gumbs
Cc: Norma Ramos; Corey Backes; justine reilly
Subject: Re: Bank account details

Dear Norma and Janet,

We are very grateful for the kind donation of USD 5,000 (Euro 3,656.31) which arrived in my account during my recent stay in Norway. We will be spending this money on communications equipment and fees and technological support, and will be retaining all receipts associated.

Our deepest thanks for your kind assistance,

Rachel and Justine

Well, that’s all pretty clear; the $5000 was awarded as a “seed grant” to SPACE to “develop” its work of ending the terrible human rights violation of consensual sex.  And SPACE’s directors said the money would be spent on “communications equipment and fees and technological support,” complete with receipts.  So nothing to see here, then…except for the part where organizational funds were deposited into a private account, and also that I’ve been hearing rumors that Moran & Reilly are not exactly friends any more.  Perhaps the estrangement is due to the fact that while Moran’s star is rising (she was even interviewed by Rupert Everett for his upcoming Channel 4 documentary, Love for Sale), it seems Reilly is being quietly retired as an embarrassment.  But if Moran & Reilly are no longer a team, what about those company funds that went into Moran’s personal account?  Here’s what my source said about that:

Ms. Moran is currently living it up in the states with the funding from SPACE.  All the original founding members left, including Justine Reilly, and none of the original members had access to SPACE funding or any of the internal administration.  SPACE International is all Rachel Moran!!!

Obviously, this is merely an allegation, but it seems it would be an easy one for the Irish tax authorities to investigate were they of a mind to do so.  While the Irish government seems afraid of crossing the Laundry Orders or looking too closely at anything they’ve polluted with their foulness, governments invariably seem much more likely to sit up and take notice when taxes are involved than when it’s a matter of some trifle like the enslavement of thousands of women.

The Connecticut judiciary committee has voted by a margin of 39-1¹ to send that awful ‘revenge porn’ bill that I warned you about to the full senate. Except they’ve made a change or two to the bill that makes it better than before but still, in my opinion, quite damn unconstitutional.

First, the good change: they’ve added exceptions to the bill. It is now not illegal if the photo is taken in public of someone who is voluntarily exposing such part.

The more important exception in my opinion is the one that prohibits prosecution where you cannot identify the person in the photograph. This is really a smart addition because you can’t really show harm if no one knows it’s you in the photo.

But I wish the news were all good. The problem is that the language is still awful for three reasons:

1. It still makes it illegal if all you’re doing is “inten[ding] to annoy”. As I said before, that’s an incredibly low and amorphous standard. What is annoyance? Does what annoys me annoy you? How can we judge the criminality of an act based on something so fluid?

2 & 3. They’re related. Nowhere does the statute specify that any pictures so disseminated have to be naked pictures. In other words, simply an “image of (1) the genitals, pubic area or buttocks of such other person”.

Perhaps the term ‘genitals’ implies nudity, but certainly ‘pubic area’ and ‘buttocks’ are vague enough to encompass images where there is no nudity.

Of course, one can argue that the title of the statute ‘intimate images’ further implies a requirement of nudity, but the problem is that ‘intimate image’ isn’t defined anywhere either.

So we have a statute that is woefully vague and criminalizes far too much conduct that is, under no circumstances, criminal. It falls victim to the same problems the other overbroad victim-oriented statute in CT has: risk of injury to a minor.

That 39 legislators voted for it and no one has yet pointed out the clear problems with this is mind-boggling. When you, a year from now, wonder how a statute like this got passed, this is how.

 

My favourite part so far about watching Columbo is picking up the little things he does to manipulate the villains and keep them off balance.  He knows they have a guilty mind and a lot to lose, and so he keeps baiting them.  If you just give him that one last piece of information, he’ll stop.  Oh no wait, just one more thing.  And sometimes when they ask him what’s the one more thing, he just says oh no, it’s late, I should go, it can wait, and they’re like no no no come on, because they really want to get it over with and they can’t stand having to agonize about what he might know.  It’s like, the villains want to not answer his questions, but he baits them with the idea that he’s close, but if they just answer his question then he’ll move on.  That little bit of false hope he just dangles in front makes THEM go to him.

His whole way of interacting with the suspects is like a quicksand trap.  The more they try to get away with the crime, the more they reveal themselves.  Because they actually did the crime, the truth is unavailable to them, so he puts them in situations where they can’t agree with his (correct) theory of the crime because that would give confirmation to him he’s on the right track, but they can’t just tell him to go away because they fear he’d keep down that line of reasoning, so they have to make something up and try to mislead him and that just gives him more knowledge about how they work and think.  Eventually he uses this knowledge to either find the piece of evidence he needs, or lay a trap for them that exploits the personality flaw they revealed.

Normally I watch mysteries because I want to try to solve who did it, or how it was done, but in this case I watch to pick up all the little nuances and strategies Columbo uses to draw the killer out into his suspicions, and then slowly get them to reveal themselves.  Even when they figure out that he’s not the bumbler he appears to be, he judos their confrontation against them and gets some knowledge out of their interaction.  In the very first movie, when the killer has analyzed Columbo & figured out his act Columbo rolls with it and gets the killer to reveal a weak point which he uses to trap him at the end.

It’s really fascinating how Columbo does this mental rope a dope with all his suspects.  He comes to you with the information he’s found, but then he just lays back and sees what you do with it, knowing that you can’t just let it go since you are guilty.

My father drank.  He was self-medicating his PTSD and possible bi-polar issues.  He didn’t drink all the time, sometimes going years with almost no drinking.  He was, generally, a functional drinker.  For most of my childhood, he drank only on weekends.  Then, as he aged, he drank daily at some point — but still he was capable of working, socializing, reasoning and all the normal ‘sober’ attributes.

So far as I know, he never attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.  At various times in my life, when I sought counseling for my childhood abuse related PTSD issues, I was advised I should seek out the AA groups dedicated to adult children of alcoholics.  I hate alcoholism’s results, you see; it has impacted my life drastically.  Thus, I inquired about precisely what AA preached.

And I hit a huge roadblock…or five.  The first two in the linked article were the biggest for me.  So, what, it is presumed you have to be a gutter-crawling sort before you say “Enough is enough!”  And the whole giving up personal power thing of the second item, that is what really made me think that maybe, just maybe even I would far prefer being drunk myself to EVER saying that I was not in charge of my own life and choices. I even had teachers tell me I would be a drunk…like father, like daughter, they said.

Well, like the AA religion pushers — they were full of shit.  We home brew, I drink less than twice a month and those times,  at most maybe two glasses of mead, or one of beer, or a single cocktail.  A bottle of vodka — my main ‘go to’ for nerve pain relief — lasts me two to three years.  Because, I AM in charge of my life and my choices.  Oh, but you say, you are not an addict.

Well, yes, I am, actually.  I’m just not addicted to alcohol, nor tobacco.  I am addicted to foods, particularly sweets.  In spite of this, I weigh within 20 pounds of my high school graduation weight after three children and years with injuries that slowed or rendered impossible most forms of exercise.  In spite of my love of sweets, I DO control my own access to and enjoyment of such pleasures.  I don’t beat myself up over the occasional delightful binge of eating a pound cake in 1.4 minutes (or whatever the quote from Practical Magic was); I simply look at it as an infrequent gift I give myself to cope with something I truly have NO control over.

Like the behaviors of others that rattle my cage.  Like the Supreme Court making it legal to sell Congress to the highest bidder.  Like Jeb Bush saying he might actually run for President.  Like the climate change deniers of the world going on about it all being bullshit from liberals — well, especially that, since climate change could make my favorite things impossibly expensive or non-existent in the future!

So yes, coffee warms my mornings, the infrequent vodka shot stills the pain of spinal injuries, e-cig delivered nicotine disperses the fog of fibromyalgia, and a piece of cake sits me down so I don’t feel the desire to go rip off a politician’s head to piss into….sure, my society would prefer I gulped big pharmaceutical’s pills and repented publicly.  Me?  Sorry, I’m too busy being a dripping fang liberal, loving my lesbian friends, practicing paganism, and baking cookies.  At least MY addiction doesn’t require armies dying, like addictions to power, wealth, and prestige do!  All those twelve steps programs?  They can step right out in their lock-step mode — off a nine-step pier!

Filed under: Life, PTSD Journals, Snark, WTUnholyF? Tagged: alcoholism, bullshit

We seem to have to go through this every year or two, and based on some of the commentary surrounding Brendan Eich apparently we have to again.  (Incidentally, what I said about Althouse back then applies to Glenn Reynolds as well — he thought that Shirley Sherrod being fired based on an unquestionably inaccurate presentation of her views was awesome, ending the question of whether he’s arguing in bad faith here.  And he’s still calling her a “racist” and “asshole” years later.)  Anyway, to reiterate what should be obvious:

• Free speech rights go beyond what is protected by the First Amendment.  The free speech rights of employees should ideally be accorded more respect than the law requires.
• It is equally clear that these rights cannot be absolute, starting with speech that is relevant to someone’s ability to do their job.
• Power, supervisory authority, and the extent to which one’s views represent an organization to the public all matter.  It would obviously be unreasonable to fire someone charged with cleaning the restrooms solely because they gave financial support to Prop 8.  It would be perfectly reasonable to fire someone for such support if they want a job writing for The Advocate.  Between the obvious cases there’s a grey area, but not every case of someone being fired for expressing particular views is exhuming McCarthy.
• Eich is obviously much more comparable here to the Advocate writer than to the custodian.  A CEO views inherently represent the organization he’s working for, and he has supervisory authority that makes him having bigoted views legitimately worrisome.
• To state the obvious, if Eich had donated to an initiative campaign dedicated to the re-criminalization of interracial marriage, or to an anti-Semitic group, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, because virtually nobody would be defending him.  Nobody really thinks that CEOs have some kind of unlimited right to free political speech, and the arguments being made in defense of Eich generally tend to minimize the importance of gay and lesbian rights.
• There is a reasonable response to the previous point, which is that in 2008 opposition to same-sex marriage was regrettably a majority position; not everyone who held a bigoted position then can have it held it against them permanently.  Fair enough, but also irrelevant to Eich, who has never repudiated his donation to the odious Prop 8 campaign (which, as djw says, goes way beyond just nominal opposition to same-sex marriage.) Eich still holds these views in 2014; had he simply said he was wrong you’d almost certainly still have no idea who he is.
• And, finally, once again Eich wasn’t fired.  He resigned.  If he doesn’t feel that he can stay on and continue to defend his bigoted views without reflecting badly on Mozilla, who am I to disagree?  And the questions being asked of him were perfectly fair, not some kind of McCarthyite smear campaign.

…First link fixed! Thanks to Roy in comments. He has the usual excellent discussion of the wingnut meltdown over this at the Voice.

SEK went to the grocery store this afternoon sporting a new hipster mustache to see how people reacted to it…

ONE GUY: Props, my brother, you’re brave. Mad love, man. Mad love.

But that’s to be expected, after all, SEK lives in Louisiana. However…

ANOTHER GUY: Dude, I think you missed a spot.

SEK: Did I?

ANOTHER GUY: An important one.

SEK: Shit, I always forget to shave there.

Lest you have any hope for humanity…

RANDOM TEENAGE GIRL: My friend over there thinks that’s hot.

SEK: Thinks what’s hot?

RANDOM TEENAGE GIRL: You know…

Fine. Have a little hope…

OLD GUY: Son, do you know what that means?

SEK: It’s a hipster –

OLD GUY: You can’t bring that back, son.

SEK: What’s old is new, and –

OLD GUY: Some old is dead.

As SEK was leaving the supermarket, two large men covered in tattoos followed him out. SEK started goose-stepping to his car for fear his social experiment had gotten out of hand. Alas, it had not…

LARGE TATTOOED MAN: Can I just shake your hand, bro?

SEK: I don’t see why not.

LARGE TATTOOED MAN: If more of us were like you, bro, this country wouldn’t even be in this shit.

SEK: I imagine not.

LARGE TATTOOED MAN: Keep fucking the faith, bro.

SEK: I…will?

In case you haven’t figured it out…

That’s right.

I decided to see how people in a Louisiana grocery store would react if I went shopping with a Hitler mustache. I’m sure none of you are shocked to discover that all of the people quoted above were white.

Because everyone else just stared at me.

When I returned home, a friend came to the door and I realized this post would’ve been much better had he arrived an hour earlier, so he could’ve accompanied me and recorded these encounters.

Also — because my friend’s rather muscular — it would’ve been fun to have offered to give that last upstanding citizen my autograph and scribbled my name down in Hebrew, just to see what would have happened.

For some reason, I thought this would make for a very funny post when I came up with it, but now I’m just sad.

If there’s one thing we know to be true about Republicans, it’s that they are never hypocritical on sexual issues. They always live up to their Christian faith and they value their own marriages just as much as they value pressing their views on marriage to the society at large.

Congressman Vance McAllister issued a statement Monday afternoon “asking for forgiveness” after The Ouachita Citizen first reported McAllister was captured in a video recording passionately kissing and embracing a member of his congressional staff.

“There’s no doubt I’ve fallen short and I’m asking for forgiveness,” McAllister said in a statement. “I’m asking for forgiveness from God, my wife, my kids, my staff, and my constituents who elected me to serve. Trust is something I know has to be earned whether your a husband, a father, or a congressman. I promise to do everything I can to earn back the trust of everyone I’ve disappointed.”

Throughout last fall’s congressional campaign, McAllister, a Republican from Swartz, touted his Christian faith and in one television commercial, he asked voters to pray for him. At least two other campaign television commercials featured McAllister walking hand in hand with his wife, Kelly, while their five children walked along. One television commercial captured the McAllister family in the kitchen of their home preparing breakfast before attending church.

McAllister and his wife have been married for 16 years.

McAllister told The Ouachita Citizen during last fall’s campaign that he would not shy from stressing his Christian faith. McAllister and his family are members at North Monroe Baptist Church. That faith prepared him for public service, he said during an interview.

McAllister’s campaign benefited from support from the Robertson family of “Duck Dynasty” fame. Phil Robertson publicly supported McAllister while Willie Robertson endorsed McAllister in a YouTube video. Also, Willie Robertson recorded “robo” calls on behalf of McAllister’s campaign.

In January, Willie Robertson attended President Obama’s State of the Union address in Washington as McAllister’s guest.

Of course, like David Vitter, he’ll be forgiven because he’s a white evangelical Republican. If he was a black politician doing the same thing, all we’d hear is slightly veiled snickering about uncontrollable black sexuality, Chicago-style politics, and talk about the immorality of Democrats.

The California Library Association is utilizing a crowdsource voting system, allowing CLA members to weigh in on what sessions will be offered at this years annual conference, November in Oakland. Crowdsource the Vote!

You can view sessions by conference track or tags, and you can also search by any of the text in the proposals (title, presenters, description).

The Center for Sex and Culture has submitted a proposal for this years conference, please consider voting for our session.

The best Little Sex Library that Could!

After running some errands and eating a gut-busting lunch at a local Indian restaurant with a buffet special, I headed over to the local brick-and-mortar bookstore and picked up a copy of the newly released Penguin Classics edition of The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies, a collection of the prose and poetry of the Atlantean High Priest Klarkash-Ton.

"You silly Bastard", you might say, "All of that literature is available at the excellent website The Eldritch Dark- a website you've linked to a number of times!" You might also point out the fact that I have produced cut-and-paste documents of a lot of the material on that website, converted them to PDF, and arranged them into folders with the pertinent groupings, such as "The Averoigne Tales" and "The Commoriom Myth Cycle"... and you'd be correct. Why? Why? Why, did you buy a copy of this book?

There are two main reasons for my purchase, one noble and one kingly. The noble reason for buying the book is that steady sales will guarantee that it stays in print, and on the shelves of the few bookstores that remain standing, so that an individual browsing the shelves may happen upon it and buy it. The kingly reason for making this purchase is because it's a lot easier to read a paperback book than it is to read a PDF file when I am cogitating on my porcelain throne in my tiled inner sanctum. Can't be booting up the laptop every time nature calls.


Postscript: I was somewhat surprised that The Seven Geases, one of Smith's best known tales, and a major inspiration for Bastard fave The Eyes of the Overworld, isn't in this book. It's just as well, though, that tale has been anthologized numerous times... nice to see some of the more obscure works make it back into print.

Line in nature is not found;
Unit and universe are round;
In vain produced, all rays return;
Evil will bless, and ice will burn.  -  Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Uriel”

I’ve been giving quite a few interviews lately, and I’ve noticed that one particular question comes up quite often (either on mike or off), especially from female interviewers:  “Would you ever do it again?”  I don’t think most of them intend it as a “gotcha” because I have been very fortunate so far in avoiding interviews with the sort of people who ask such questions (the most popular of which is “Would you want your daughter to do it?”)  Rather, I think it’s symptomatic of the underlying assumption, even among many people who firmly believe in self-ownership and sex worker rights, that there is something intrinsically “wrong” or distasteful about sex work.  I’m not blaming them, mind; that attitude is so deeply and firmly embedded in our culture that it’s a rare person indeed who is completely free of it, and that includes whores.  Most people, including many sex worker allies and staunch advocates, tend to think of retired sex workers as people who have “exited”, or “gotten out”, or even “escaped”, and are therefore understandably curious about someone like me who views our profession as not merely something to be tolerated, but a positive good.

When people ask why I retired, I often reply “Did I?”  As I’ve often stated, I don’t view marriage as all that different from prostitution; the affection my husband and I share does not lessen the economic basis of our formal relationship.  But that’s not really what my questioners mean; what they want to know is, “If you were faced with economic need, would you go back to professional whoring?”  And the answer is, “Of course I would.”  I already came out of retirement once due to a major financial setback, and life is full of such passages; if a similar situation arose, I would do it again.  There’s nothing strange about this; many women drift in and out of sex work at different times in our lives, or change between different types of sex work as conditions change, and I’m no different from anyone else.  Perhaps the question also reflects a kind of intellectual snobbery; maybe there’s an assumption that because I’m now a writer who is noted for her mind and words, that returning to sex work would be a kind of regression or even debasement.  But that’s elitist garbage; unless I suddenly evolve into an incorporeal being who can live on air and sunlight, I will always have physical and economic needs which must be addressed pragmatically.

The fact that this isn’t completely obvious to everyone says a lot about our society’s weird hang-ups.  Nobody would even think of asking a retired nurse, teacher, cook or real-estate agent if she’d go back to it should the need arise; for any profession other than whore, it would be a given.  Only when we reach the point where that query seems just as inane when directed toward a sex worker, will we know that at long last humanity has given up its childish and destructive superstitions about sex.

Here's a hard fact about free speech: vindicating it in American courts takes either money (and lots of it), or lawyers willing to provide pro bono help. Right is right, and law is law, but court is court — and winning in court generally requires competent representation, which is ruinously expensive for normal people. It's not fair, it's not right, but it's true.

Therefore the vitality of the First Amendment depends not just on the law, but on the service of lawyers like Troy Sexton of Motschenbacher & Blattner LLP in Portland, Oregon.

Last August I put up the Popehat Signal seeking pro bono help for an anti-telemarketing blogger who writes at the Telecom Compliance News Press. The blogger was sued by an attorney named F. Antone Accuardi, who claimed that the blog falsely associated him with companies involved with robocalling and other telemarketing violations.

Troy Sexton stepped up. He filed a motion under Oregon's anti-SLAPP statute in response to Accuardi's complaint, and this March, he prevailed. Accuardi's complaint is here, Sexton's anti-SLAPP motion is here, and the Magistrate Judge's lengthy and detailed order granting the anti-SLAPP motion is here. Sexton's work was absolutely top-notch. The main basis of the judge's order is that the blog's comments of Accuardi were statements of opinion based on disclosed and linked facts about the companies and Accuardi's connections to them, and therefore protected by the First Amendment. It's a very thorough opinion and worth a read if you're interested in First Amendment and anti-SLAPP issues.

This is a tremendous victory for the blog, and for Troy Sexton and his firm. Sexton has a motion for fees pending; though he stepped in pro bono, I hope that he winds up collecting at his full rate from Accuardi. I am more free, and so are you, because people like Troy Sexton are willing to step up and contribute their time and skill. Please join me in congratulating him.

Anti-SLAPP Victory In Oregon: Anti-Telemarketing Blog Wins Big With Pro Bono Help © 2007-2014 by the authors of Popehat. This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. Using this feed on any other site is a copyright violation. No scraping.

In 1969, the Ad Council provided a very important message about venereal disease with a tune as catchy as the clap. Remember friends, VD is for everybody.